There’s something different about sipping a glass of fine rum. Sure, there are great spirits from around the world. But when you drink a glass of rum, you’re tasting something else — history, culture, love, torment, romance. You are tasting a place. Often, you are tasting the Caribbean. And that’s what makes rum not just the world’s most diverse spirit, but its most interesting, too. This is the fourth edition of the Rum Awards, something that began as a way of celebrating rum and has grown into one of the world’s most influential annual selections of fine rum. This year, the Rum Journal team tasted almost 200 rums from around the Caribbean (and the world) and chose the ones that we loved the most — the ones that are the most interesting, the ones that embody the spirit best, including the rum of the year, which was our hardest choice since we began in 2011. Here are the our favorites for 2015 — the best rums of the year. You can call them the Rummys 2015.
Rum of the Year: 1931 (Fourth Edition) By St Lucia Distillers
The Rum of the Year is always the hardest choice to make, and this year was no different. More and more producers are entering the market with serious aged rums, looking to highlight how far rum has come, how many delicious, interesting rums are now on the market. But one rum took top honors: 1931 from St Lucia Distillers. This is the fourth edition of a small-production rum, but this year there was a twist: along with a blend of several maturates, this year saw the inclusion in the blend of St Lucian-grown rhum agricole, the first agricole to be produced on the island since the 1930s. The result is something rather astonishing: a velvety, voluptous rum with a fascinating texture and a playful but elegant flavor profile marked by tropical fruit, citrus zest, caramel, dried mango and spice. This was the best rum we tried all year, and a simply spectacular rum. Cheers to the 2015 Rum of the Year, 1931 By St Lucia Distillers.
Runners up: Mount Gay XO, Ron Santiago de Cuba 11 Anos, Flor de Cana 25, Papa’s Pilar Limited Edition.
